Skip to content
Decision details
 

Decision details

Royal Mail contract

Decision Maker: Chief Executive

Decision status: For Determination

Is Key decision?: No

Is subject to call in?: No

Purpose:

The procurement process is a complicated one as we are not able to direct award the contract as we’d hoped and need to go out to mini competition.

 

     There is no Strategy and Resources meeting in June and the July meeting would be too late as the contract runs out on 10 June.

 

     We were anticipating being able to carry out a direct award under the Crown Commercial Services framework agreement for the provision of these services but it transpires that this is unlikely to be value for money and going down a further competition route is likely to result in better pricing and allow the council to take into account factors other than price alone. This became clear in a meeting on 26 May and so this is the first opportunity to seek this decision.

 

An analysis of the market shows there would be no financial disadvantage to the council of not going out to procurement for its collection and delivery service at the end of the current contract as there is currently little price difference between suppliers.

 

     The cumulative cost of the variations to date given we have already extended by 6 months (at an added cost of £57,147.50 to the overall contract value of £457,180) over and above the original contract awarded. This would be another £28,573.75 so a cumulative variation of £85,721.25.  Given that a procurement process will immediately be carried out this should be a low risk variation since it is so short term and competing suppliers will be able to take part in a procurement for a contract of up to 7 years.

 

Decision:

To approve a further three-month extension of the Royal Mail contract to allow for the complex procurement process to be completed.

 

Alternative options considered:

We carry on with no contract in place breaking contract procedure rules.

 

Urgent item?: Yes

Publication date: 14/06/2021

Date of decision: 27/05/2021

Accompanying Documents: